I've decided to give myself a little motivation to actually get my mountain of minis whittled down, so I'm starting this WIP. The image below is the pile I have to clear. It's probably not that much to some, but it's a voice in the back of my head clamoring for attention. Figure the best way to motivate myself would be to state it publicly, so I'll paint to keep myself from embarrassing myself by not painting. There are so many mini figures out there that I want to buy and paint, but with this sitting around, I can't justify it.

Now, I don't think I'll be able to stand not buying any miniatures, so I've decided to use a point system for myself. I won't bore anybody with the details... no, wait. I will. Figure the best way to motivate myself to paint the figures, and paint them as well as I can and not just spray paint and then dip 'em, is to use the CMON votes. Anything scoring above a 5, I get points. Below 5, no points. Haven't quite figured out how many points I'll allow myself before I use them to grant me a purchase, but that'll come in time. Figure I should also give myself a point for each WIP post, so I'm thinking the voting scores will count more. Details, details.

So, what's in that pile you ask? Let's start with the minis already started:
1) A knight of Bretonnia, started probably more than 5 years ago. Going to be for the wife, with a "Fightin' Panda" on the banners.
2) A Reaper mini fighter, planned to be used with the Wolfen already painted, gifted by cfwheeler58 in this thread from 2 years ago (!!!). (Completed 5/14/2012 GALLERY LINK)
3) The Cortez from Babylon 5, an exploration ship (Completed 11/26/2011 GALLERY LINK)
4) Reaper's Elise the Witch. Second time for me to paint this. First one, that's in my gallery, was shipped off to a remote base as a prize during a soldier's gaming convention.
5) Two fighters from Reaper's "Learn to Paint" kit, one male and one female
6) Some Reaper sorceress
7) Two dwarves from a mini-exchange a couple years back

Now for the minis that aren't as far along.

For someone who's not enamored with GW, I seem to have quite a bit:
Warhammer 40K

Toyota Estima minivan (2 models; probably won't put them in the gallery, but want to have a complete list)

Mowe with Nausicaa, from the anime Nausicaa (gift from my then-fiance, now wife of 11 years. Yeah, been a long while to wait on this one)

Originally, I had planned to give myself a one year span to paint all of the above. That won't happen. No way, no how. But, we'll see how long it does take me to do all that, and maybe have a few laughs along the way. I ain't going nowhere for a long time.

09-30-2011, 01:26 PM

Dragonsreach

Giving yourself a points system ready for buying new mini's sounds a good idea.
How's about working it out at 1 point per full point scored and 0.5 points for between X.5 and Y. So if you score a 6.7 that become 1.5 points a 7.2 would be 2 points etc...

As for painting in what order, make a list in Excel, apply number or use the row references and depending on how many rows you end up with roll dice to get a randon selection of order (re-roll duplicates of course.). {I've not got enough dice to attempt this myself.}

09-30-2011, 01:36 PM

Benihana

Quote:

Originally Posted by PegaZus

1) A knight of Bretonnia, started probably more than 5 years ago. Going to be for the wife, with a "Fightin' Panda" on the banners.

Yeah, luckily those are all normally tucked away inside ONE drawer of a file cabinet. I'm actually surprised everything fits.

But anyway, have had in-laws from out of country in, and I'm trying to wrap up one other little project before I start digging into this. My lofty plan of at least an hour of painting a night ran into the harsh reality of being so drowsy that any sort of activity other than bed was out of the question. Soon!

But anyway, have had in-laws from out of country in, and I'm trying to wrap up one other little project before I start digging into this. My lofty plan of at least an hour of painting a night ran into the harsh reality of being so drowsy that any sort of activity other than bed was out of the question.

Yeah. My in-laws suck the life out of me too!

10-11-2011, 12:30 AM

PegaZus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bloodhowl

Yeah. My in-laws suck the life out of me too!

Oh, don't get me wrong. I've a weird family. Should we every divorce, my wife would have to go live with my family, and I'd have to go live with hers. Our own flesh and blood would disown us!

But they have sucked the life out a bit. They flew in on Thursday, and we took them shopping. Then drove them to New Mexico on Friday, shopping along the way, then rode ATVs at a mountain cabin before returning Sunday, again shopping along the way, dinner, then more shopping. This morning was shopping, lunch, air museum, air museum shopping, pick up the kids, dinner and more shopping. They head back tomorrow morning very early. I'm sure they'll shop once they get through the security gates.

I'm looking forward to not having to go shopping for a bit, and just have to concentrate on work. This vacation crap is for the birds.

10-19-2011, 12:36 AM

PegaZus

And so it begins.

In earnestly, at least. And appropriately enough, the first photos from the WIP are of Babylon 5's Cortez, or what ever I eventually decide to call it. For those of you who didn't watch, this is an Explorer class ship, one that goes around and builds jump gates for other ships. I think it was only featured in a single TV episode, so there's a little bit to go on. Not sure if I'll be following the color scheme perfectly or if I'll go off on my own. The wikis show other ships named, but I don't think that there were any other pictures of the ships. Figure each ship is crewed for such long stretches, they might apply their own paint. This would mostly be on the two pieces not shown, probably which are radiators or arrays of some sort. I still might go with the standard yellow/red arrows. Have time.

I'd really like to do a good job on this, but don't think it'll be getting up there in scores. There's just too many fiddly bits missing for me to have a lot of passion for it. It'll be desktop quality (and join my other ships on my desk at work). Still, we'll see what we get done.

In addition, these are the first tests of how well I'll be able to take pictures. I believe they're passable for now, which is remarkable considering they came from my new cell phone. Which is yet another reason I've been delaying the start of this. Before, it was take pictures, find the cord, download to the computer, edit them, upload to flickr, then post. Now, I can just take the pic from the phone, upload it to flickr, and post. I will probably do a much nicer shot for the gallery, but I'm happy with the way these two pictures came out and think they're good enough for WIPs. One less impediment.

So on to the pictures. Two views, and really all I've managed so far is black primer with some grey basecoat (Reaper Master Series, Cloudy Grey, 089 (more for my reference than anything else)). Amazing how much you notice you've missed once you take a picture.

Oh, should mention that. I'll be keeping "score" for myself. One point for a WIP post with a picture that shows progress. Ten points for a gallery posting of a finished mini / squad. Then one point for every tenth of a point above 5.0 it has once it reaches 50 votes. At 50 earned points, I'll allow myself to buy another mini. However, I'll make an exception for cash gifts and such. Money to do with what I will.

10-19-2011, 01:44 AM

kathrynloch

That ship is cool! Too bad it's missing parts. But I think i will be fantastic. I think your points idea is a good one too! Good luck Pegazus!

10-19-2011, 02:27 AM

marjedi

Babylon 5, man that show had some awesome , and huuuuuge, ships.

10-19-2011, 08:35 AM

PegaZus

Quote:

Originally Posted by kathrynloch

That ship is cool! Too bad it's missing parts.

The missing parts are things that just weren't modeled. The "real" ship has lots antennas and other things sticking off it that just didn't make it in this scale.

Quote:

Originally Posted by marjedi

Babylon 5, man that show had some awesome , and huuuuuge, ships.

For sure. I would really like to collect more of their ships but I need to paint more first! I think they're all part of a gaming system but alas; I don't game. So I really don't want to collect very many, just my favorites. Might try to find some Earthforce ships on eBay. Hadn't thought of that.

10-19-2011, 11:13 AM

Aesu

Wow that's a nice model. I'm too scared to start my spaceship model (the Galactica) because of the scale and details. Good luck!

10-19-2011, 11:45 AM

PegaZus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aesu

Wow that's a nice model. I'm too scared to start my spaceship model (the Galactica) because of the scale and details. Good luck!

Is that the Moebius Models Galactica by any chance? 1/4105 scale? Did that last Christmas, and it was actually very easy to do. Metallic silver base coat, matte clear (took the shine off), then a black wash and it was nearly done.

10-19-2011, 01:46 PM

Aesu

It is that one yes. It's a nice kit isn't it?I want to weather it and add some battle damage. I haven't done weathering yet so I want to try it out on something smaller first. Plus I haven't built a plastic model kit like that since I was a kid, and most of those ended up .. dodgy.

10-21-2011, 12:52 AM

PegaZus

Managed about 30 minutes tonight after putting in an 11 hour day. Stress is really killing me at work, so I should take the stress thread's advice as well rather than just give it. Headed to bed shortly, but love being able to take a quick shot and put it up in less than 5 minutes.

Put some more gray on the main sections of the ship. Originally, I wanted to let some black show through, but I think it'll look better with just a dark wash instead. I'll do that at some point once all the colors are put on. Also started in on the solar arrays or jump arrays or whatever the large blue things are. Based that with RMS Sky Blue (9018) and will go with the other two blues in the triad, possibly going with a spot of black in the darkest, in order to make the mottled pattern.

Hi there, have to say that list is long... myself I have a list of Eldars that needs to get painted. It is very hard to start when you see all the figures. I would suggest that now that you have started with some figures that you "hide" all figures except 2 of them and set some goal on each figure. Like I want to do base colours within 2 weeks. When you achive that give yourself a pat on the back :)

Then you set a new goal until the figure is done. This helps me sometimes when I am not really inspired too paint... Well when I get going it is nice, just the starting that is blooody difficult.

Cheers,

/Kretcher

10-27-2011, 12:32 AM

PegaZus

Managed to get some paint up on the mini finally today. Been a rough week at work, as I've nearly put in a full day of overtime already and the week's just halfway through. But came home on time today, mostly because I was disgusted at having to restart most everything I'm working on. Can't do good with that mindset, so home I went.

Worked on getting some white (Ghost White; 9063) down on the areas that'll be colored something other than gray. I'm really leaning towards a green and white checkerboard motif. The Cortez in the TV show was blue/white checkers on the habitat module (the center rings) and yellow/red stripes on the front and back. I think I'll hit the habitat ring with the green and white, but not sure I want to do the same for the end parts. Oh, and the little circular "bridge" at the front was the same as the habitat ring.

So, if I go with green and white on those areas, shifting the color wheel gives me orange and purple stripes. Uh, no. Ick. Sort of leaning towards green and blue stripes.

I put some more blue shades on the arrays; True Blue (9017) and Sapphire Blue (9016). Tried to get the mottled appearance, which actually isn't mottled on the screen. Figure I'm not going to be able to paint squares that small, so this should suffice.

Thinking I might try to get the fighter for the Wolfen dio started this week. Just some base coats. Depends on how bad work gets and things at the house pile up.

Also, you may notice that my list in the first post got longer. Package came today with my birthday present. Couple pandas, couple witches, a raccoon and a hell baby. Into the to-do pile they go!